


no less than the trees and the stars

by spicanao



Category: Octopath Traveler (Video Game)
Genre: Comfort/Angst, Discopath Server Gift Exchange 2019, Gift Fic, M/M, post-game spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 01:15:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20073721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spicanao/pseuds/spicanao
Summary: The road back home is a long one, especially when you don't have one.





	no less than the trees and the stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tunacup](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tunacup/gifts).

> Gift fic for Tuna for our Octopath server's summer gift exchange! It was a pleasure writing this and hope you enjoy!!!

You are a child of the universe,  
no less than the trees and the stars;  
you have a right to be here.  
And whether or not it is clear to you,  
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. 

(Desiderata, Max Ehrmann)

*

It’s done. Over with. A god of life and death sealed away, damned to the far reaches of hell—though his name is far from erased in the stories of humanity. There is no societal amnesia that chains Galdera into nonlife for eternity. Because _they _remember it all: the witch, the boy, the death hymn to all of life. And maybe the ghosts that haunt them now are different from the ones they’d faced in the depths of Finis.

It’s done. So what business do they have together now?

Tressa realizes it first. She sits quietly in her perch on a tree, legs dangling precariously above Therion’s head. “I think I’ll go home to see my parents,” she says.

_Home._

The crisp air of the Highlands fills his lungs with the cold clench of dread. Therion doesn’t answer, but his lips twitch and his body grows restless. He adjusts the tattered scarf around his neck several times over, toying with the fabric, pretending to be lost in thought, but all for naught. Tressa swings down to sit behind him, her back pressing into his, and she elbows him. Her voice quivers in uncertainty. “I don’t know how to tell the others.”

“You just do,” he says, voice deceivingly even. “Open your mouth. Yap away like you always—”

“Hey, I do _not!”_

“You just tell them.” Silence stretches over their heads, far from comforting. To Therion, the quiet is normally a godsend—but Tressa’s silence is an omen for something he dares not mull over. When she doesn’t answer, he pushes himself to his feet. “We should get back,” says the thief.

Goodbyes used to be easy when they were unnecessary. You didn’t need to lament the loss of anyone when you snipped them away regularly.

But the others take the news well. Alfyn finds loose leaves in his boot and orders a round for them all at Everhold’s tavern. A _celebration, _he calls it—and drunk on the atmosphere, Tressa shares her news. “I’m going back home!”

“They’ll be relieved to see you again,” Ophilia tells the young merchant. She sips her mug of ale, frowning at the taste. Therion suspects she’ll discreetly slide it back to the barkeep. “Along the same vein, I should… be returning to the Church as well. Lianna will be waiting, and I have a duty to fulfill.” A breath and a smile, somber but at peace. “For father.”

Cyrus nods along, as if suddenly realizing, “I must return to the academy!”

“You must be eager to return, Professor,” comes Primrose’s smooth voice, lightened by a smile. The dancer leans forward to prop her elbows against the table. “Essays to write, books to publish?”

He nods. “And you, Primrose? Will you return to Noblecourt?”

The dancer’s pleasant simper falters. “Not yet.” Her eyes burn hotter than the flames Therion can call upon. “I think I will return to the Sunlands to visit a dear friend.” She fiddles with the torn remnants of a handkerchief, weaved intricately into the ribbon tying her hair together. With the barest hint of a fond smile, Primrose shakes her head, motioning to the huntress beside her. “H’aanit has received a request from King Khalim as well, so we will journey together and return to S’warkii.”

“Splendid!” Cyrus answers, and breathes in as if he wants to say something else—but an uncomfortable, pondering look crosses his face and he stops himself. Glancing around, he reaches for his mug, and mirroring him, they each take a loud sip. Silence fills their table as ale fills their bellies. Therion feels words lodged in his throat but can’t bring himself to speak them, rolling doubts and fears and a lead-like weight over his tongue. They don’t speak of Kit or the send-off they’d given him, a sad and sorry excuse of an explanation about his father—about his role in the affair. Nor do they talk of anything _else_, for that matter.

There’s too much to say. Too much seen. And yet, nothing they can voice.

The Dark God had been… something else, something beyond the comprehension of eight ragged travelers, strung together by fate, and a boy searching for his father. He remembers faces of the dead—_Darius’ _face, Darius who Therion vaguely knew was gone, but whose corpse he’d never seen himself. But it’s done with, the figure of his nightmares gone—if not in memory, then in the living world. _They _survived, the nine of them; _they _live on.

The paths are theirs to take, traveler-trodden but free, unrestricted. The paths have stayed the same, but they—or perhaps _he—_changed.

_The diary…_

Therion keeps the Ravus documents folded and tucked away into his back pocket. They’d plagued his thoughts ever since Cyrus dropped them into his hands. But he already knows his answer: he’ll pass them off to a merchant, leak a rumor into the market, and the Lady Ravus will find it herself. He’s no longer bound to her by their business—no, had it _ever _been something as harmless as a business transaction? Even if the shackles she’d chained onto him are gone, now, the scars remain. And he will never forget.

He won’t return to Bolderfall, he decides.

“What about you, Sir Olberic?” Tressa’s voice, muffled into her cup, breaks the silence. “Are you going back to Cobbleston?”

Glad for the distraction, the tall warrior leans back into his chair, sitting upright. “Ah, I believe I will make my way to Wellspring for some time before returning.” He glances to H’aanit and Primrose, the corners of his lips tugging into a wry smile. “If you would not mind…”

H’aanit nods before he even finishes. “Thou needest not our permission, Olberic. Of course thou art welcome to join us.” Primrose says nothing, waving her hand in a shooing motion as if the answer is obvious, and Olberic grins.

Beside Therion, Tressa slumps over, bumping into his shoulder. “Aw man,” she whines, pushing her half-finished mug away, “I was hoping someone would come with me to Rippletide.”

“I would gladly accompany you,” Cyrus offers. “Sailing to Atlasdam may be the quickest route. In fact, Flamesgrace is in the same direction as well.” The professor turns to Ophilia just as she pushes her ale towards Alfyn. “Between the three of us, the journey should be quite eventful!”

“Oh! Yes, I couldn’t agree more.”

On Therion’s other side, Alfyn rolls out the kinks in his neck, but says nothing. Therion wants to ask, _and what about you? Which corner of the earth will _you _disappear to? _But the venom on his tongue hurts him more than it would the others, so he swallows the words down. The apothecary reaches across him to pick up Ophilia’s mug and, for a fleeting second, his eyes graze over Therion’s own, catching him staring. The thief forces the breath into his lungs, stilling every fiber of his being into a false calm. For a moment, he thinks Alfyn can read his thoughts, that Alfyn knows exactly _what _he’s been avoiding since the moment Tressa spoke to him in the tree. The apothecary is smarter than Cyrus, sometimes, in a quiet sort of way. The taller man parts his lips to speak—

“And you, Alfyn? Where will the winds take you? Back to Clearbrook?”

Therion breathes a stuttered sigh of relief.

_What exactly are you afraid of?_

He looks away, stewing in his own mug of ale, both hands clasped around the cup as he stares into its contents. He’s afraid of many things, he knows, fears he’d shoved away and masked for as long as he can remember. Things he would never have faced without Tressa’s pestering, Primrose’s sharp tongue, H’aanit’s cool comfort, Ophilia’s gentle persistence, Cyrus’ guidance, Olberic’s courage—

Alfyn’s… _Alfyn._

It’s the chilled nights by the campfire, when everyone else is asleep. The whispered talks, the longer looks. The laugh that rumbles in Therion’s chest when Alfyn makes a bad joke, and the fond smile that chases him when that laugh leaves him breathless. It’s the way he’s felt the distance closing in on him, the other man so close he can touch him—but that lingering _what if _makes Therion’s fingers freeze each time.

What if nothing lasts after all?

What are goodbyes, then, if not an end to the present?

“No, I don’t think I’ll head back just yet,” Alfyn says, and Therion jerks his head back up. The apothecary doesn’t look at him, and for that the thief is grateful—for Therion only realizes belatedly that his mouth is open, expression unguarded. _Why are you hiding? _he curses himself. _These are people you trust. _“There’s so much more I want to see out there. And ‘sides, Zeph’ll laugh at me for comin’ back so soon.”

“Oh?” Olberic tilts his head, forehead creased in curiosity. “Where will you go?”

“I was thinking east, maybe swing on over to Goldshore to see the twins and head up towards Grandport, check out the wares. If luck’s on my side, there’ll be herbs from the other continent.”

The warrior nods. “Ever so diligent. Your cause is a noble one, Alfyn.”

Something twinges in the apothecary’s smile, but he shakes his head, running his fingers through the loose hairs on the nape of his neck. “Ah shucks, go easy on the compliments.”

“Don’t make his head bigger than it already is,” Therion snorts under his breath, but his thoughts linger on that hesitant smile.

“And what about you, Therion?”

His chuckle dies in his throat and the thief glances away. “Hn,” he hums, slipping his arms back into the confines of his mantle, “Here, there, wherever the rumors lead me.”

“You’re… going back?” Tressa asks, but freezes. She doesn’t specify where or what, but Therion knows her meaning from the shame that reddens her face. _To thievery, _she means to say. Amazingly, not a single trace of disgust curls on her lip. Somewhere along the way, he and the merchant had forgotten their differences. Or—a part of him wistfully believes—she might be worried.

“If push comes to shove,” he starts, suddenly interested in his hands, “it’s what I know best.”

Tressa frowns, chewing on her bottom lip. “Therion, why don’t you come with us? Or why don’t you come home with me?”

_Home. _There it is again. There was no _home _in Saintsbridge, years ago when he met Darius. No home in Riverford, in Bolderfall, in the streets or on the ground. Home was—_is—_

With _them, _he thinks, uncertainly, frighteningly.

For thieves have no trust but in the moon lighting the path overhead, or the winds easing up in the middle of the night. Thieves do not have _friends _who offer them shelter, food, companionship, protection.

But Therion does. Seven of them. So what does that make him? Not quite a thief—not quite anything else, for that matter.

He doesn’t know where to go. “I’m not one to settle down,” he says, forcing a smirk to his face. _Don’t see it, _he pleads. _Don’t see through me._

But surely they do—because Tressa looks doubtful and Primrose far-too quiet, too watchful, to be unassuming. So, instead, he says, “I’m going east,” the lie flowing smoothly off his tongue. “Somewhere new. A change of pace.”

At first, he thinks the merchant doesn’t believe him. Her furrowed brow almost seems to be a permanent crease on her forehead before Primrose, placing a hand on the young woman’s shoulder, smiles to him. “Don’t stray too far from us now.”

Trust.

If Therion feels any guilt—and this he does, unfathomably—he swallows it down to save for later, when it will eat away at him in the dark.

Goodbyes are simple on the surface. Simple in practice. Cut very deeply after they are said and done.

Primrose smothers him into a back-crushing hug, her fingers like claws as they scrape against the fabric of his mantle. “Find me in S’warkii,” she says, and even if it sounds like a command, Therion reads it like a promise. He nods.

Olberic does not give him a hug and instead ruffles through his hair before tying his unkempt mane into a short ponytail. Flustered, Therion keeps himself from fussing with it and raises his scarf even higher around his neck to shield the exposed nape of his neck. “This has been on my mind since it started to grow out,” the warrior laughs, the sound soft and fond. “When I was young, Erhardt would pester me to tie my own hair up. It _is _easier to battle when one can see, after all.” He removes a small sheathe from his belt, placing it into the thief’s hands. “Take care, Therion. May our paths cross again.”

They all hover before the town’s entrance like this, exchanging small gifts and heavy words that seem to ring with finality. Tressa, Cyrus, and Ophilia leave first, the holy woman pressing tears into her sleeves as she waves to them beside Tressa’s shouted commands to “visit soon!” H’aanit passes by him next, Linde slinking past his legs to catch up with the huntress. “May the spirits blessen thy path, Therion,” she wishes, trailed by Primrose and Olberic.

He is alone, almost.

“So where are you _really _headed, Therion?”

The thief flinches in surprise before turning. Alfyn crosses his arms, leaning against a sign post. His smile is lopsided, eyes doing half the job as they crease into crescents, brightening his face. He starts again, “East, was it?”

Rolling his eyes, Therion grumbles, “That’s right.”

“East as in…” The apothecary motions to the side, pointing. “That way?”

“Alfyn, that’s north.”

The taller man tilts his head. “Huh, you’re right. Just checkin’ if you knew where to go. Whereabouts east do you figure?”

Ah.

Therion clucks his tongue before answering, slowly, “Grandport.”

Victory shines in Alfyn’s eyes. “Mind if I tag along?” the man asks, but Therion knows the apothecary’s seen through him—probably from the moment he first spoke. He knows him _so well, _and enough to know Therion’s answer before he even speaks it.

“Whatever,” the thief says, averting his eyes. But his heart leaps. Relief. “We’re going the same way, anyway.”

Alfyn laughs and steps forward. Tucking a strand of hair behind Therion’s ear, he lingers for a moment before pulling his hand away, embarrassed. They both feel it, the tension, electric in the air, but the apothecary retreats just as Therion turns his eyes to the ground, awkward.

Their relationship was—is_—something, _even if they have no name for it. In the wake of Northreach, he’d slipped away to be alone more often than usual, and each time, Alfyn followed him out the inn doors. They never talked about Darius or Miguel or Vanessa, even when those wounds shimmered fresh in their minds, in their nightmares. Instead, Alfyn told him stories of Clearbrook and he’d traded tales of heists and thieves’ superstitions.

Between the two of them now, conversation is muted. But Therion finds he isn’t uncomfortable with the lulls in speech, nor the times Alfyn’s hands brush against his knuckles. “We haven’t talked much since the battle,” Alfyn says. “I was hopin’ to ask if you’d come with me to Grandport. I’m a lucky guy, I guess, that you were headed there anyhow.”

“Well,” Therion starts, shuffling his feet, “It’s not like I had anywhere to be.”

Alfyn opens his mouth to say something but stops himself, masking it with a laugh instead, and the sound echoes over and over in the thief’s mind. He wonders what it is, exactly, that the apothecary was going to say, but doesn’t ask.

He does ask later, when the moon and stars and orange flickers of flame are the only things that illuminate Alfyn’s face in the darkest hours of the night. By then, the apothecary is tired out, spread out on his own bedroll already, and Therion sits across from him, dangling his gifted dagger precariously before the fire.

“You were going to say something before,” he says, sheathing the blade. “Back on the road, but you stopped yourself.”

Alfyn opens one eye, peering at him from a laying position. He frowns. “I don’t remember. What were we talking about?”

Therion tries not to feel embarrassed, but it creeps upon him like a beast stalking prey—that he might be overthinking this, that it’s stupid of him to fixate on something so minor, so unimportant. “Never mind,” he says instead, turning away to his own bedroll. “It was nothing.”

The apothecary sits upright. “What is it, Therion?”

“It doesn’t matter. Get some sleep. We need to leave earlier in the day to beat the heat.”

The other man stares at him for a long while—Therion feels the intense gaze against the back of his neck. “If you say so,” Alfyn murmurs, voice trailing, but he remains upright, sitting cross-legged as he watches over him. When Therion turns to face him once more, the man’s brows shoot up in surprise. “I thought you were asleep.”

“Can’t sleep when you’re staring at me like you want to say something. What is it?”

A bark of laughter slips out of Alfyn’s throat before he stifles it. “Sorry, didn’t mean t’ stare so hard. I was just thinkin’ about… well, you know.”

He _doesn’t _know. Rolling to his side, Therion pushes himself up, moving to the other man’s side of the campfire. He settles himself on the edge of the apothecary’s bedroll, one knee drawn up and chin propped up against his arm, leaning on it. “What’s bothering you, Alf?”

Whatever smile Alfyn wears crumples and he looks away. “About Galdera,” he says, whispering the forbidden name, fists clenched at his sides. “I was thinkin’ about Kit and… Graham. Redeye. Nobody’s really talked about it since we got out of that place, but he’s been on my mind since.”

Therion breathes, unsure what to say. His free hand moves and he nearly reaches out to the other man, fingers twitching, before Alfyn shifts and he hastily pulls his arm back. “A lot of things happened, yeah,” he answers instead.

“I wondered if I could have saved him, like he’d saved me.”

The look on Alfyn’s face makes his gut wrench. For the flicker of a moment, he looks like he did with Miguel, eyes full of regret. “Alfyn—”

“I know it’s useless, dwellin’ on the past like this… but I keep thinkin’ about Marsalim, that battle. And now with all that Lyblac’s told us, I just—” He swallows. “It was a cruel, cruel way to die.”

The thief chews on his lip before sighing. “It’s unfair,” he admits. “The Gods are unfair. Sometimes, I wonder if we were just pawns in their game all along. But, Alfyn,” he reaches for him this time, lowering a shaking hand onto the other man’s shoulder, “I’m… sorry for your loss.”

Alfyn cups his own larger hand over Therion’s, holding it in place. As they sit by the fire, the heat doing little to warm the chill on their skin, he thinks he hears a trembling, fragile exhale. But Alfyn does not cry. He smiles, wearing a brave face, and pulls Therion toward him.

“You’re really somethin’,” the man whispers into his hair, and the thief doesn’t resist his hold. “Your hair looks good like this, by the way. We match.”

Therion wrinkles his nose in distaste. “Shut up.”

“I’m glad you’re here with me.” A pause. “I didn’t know if you’d want to stick around.”

A lump forms in his throat, one he can’t swallow down. “I didn’t know that I could.”

“Always, Therion.” The hug tightens, forcing the thief to breathe in more intensely, and he inhales Alfyn’s earthy smell. “Always.” And Therion wants to kiss him then, maybe softly, maybe sweetly, maybe as quietly as a sigh—but he’s never done it before, never known if it was okay. So he breathes instead, and for now, he thinks, _this is okay._

They are lonely, sometimes, and it echoes in the way Therion turns over his shoulder to point something out to Primrose, and Alfyn picks up pretty rocks for Tressa.

“I miss them,” Therion says, surprising even himself. “It’s too quiet, which is something I never thought I’d say with _you_ around.”

Alfyn laughs, scratching the back of his neck. “It is, huh. I wonder what they’re all up to.” He reaches for Therion’s hand as they walk, and as flustered as it makes him, the shorter man allows his fingers to lock around his own. Like this, he realizes, they are not quite alone.

Still, he wonders how long he can keep this up—this dance between something and something _more. _This confusion between something fleeting and something fixed.

They come and go. From one town to the next, they spend most of their time weaving through crowds and asking if anyone needs an apothecary. In Goldshore, Alfyn meets Ellen and Flynn, at least two heads taller than they were last. The girls shower the apothecary in seashell bracelets, seashell crowns, seashell wreaths and amulets. “It’s good to see you girls all sunny,” Alfyn chuckles.

Ellen grins up at him. “We can get you a nice discount at the inn, so you should stay, Alfyn!”

He glances to Therion, who shrugs with the corners of his lips upturned. “Well, how could I say no to that?”

They’d stayed at this inn maybe once or twice over half a year ago. Here, Ophilia had renewed the Sacred Flame—and here, they’d met Vanessa. The nostalgia feels like an old bandage, crusted, stiff, and too painful to tear off. Therion passes the time speaking to the merchants, haggling prices for apples and other fruits. The apothecary surrounds himself with work.

Beneath the candlelight, the shadows dance across Alfyn’s form. He mutters something under his breath, pushing his newly purchased glasses up the bridge of his nose as his eyes scan the yellowed pages of his medical tome. Even with the new frames on his face, he has to squint to read. A sigh slips out, then more muttering. One battle-scarred arm reaches up behind his neck to scrape at the tousled knots in his hair while he leans into his seat. The desk chair he sits in teeters dangerously far back as he moves in a rocking motion, deep in thought.

Therion pauses. “Something wrong?” he calls out from the bed, but the man doesn’t answer. Even after their journey, sharing a room with someone feels foreign to him. Back on the road, with the others, it had been different—they were all together, even if they’d been separated into different rooms. But here, there is only Alfyn’s presence, Alfyn’s influence scattered across the room. Books, pestles, a stray mint leaf and an over-steeped teapot. Therion slips out from under the covers. “Alf—"

Alfyn slips forward in surprise, the legs of his chair clacking against the hardwood floors. He turns to look over his shoulder at him. “Sorry, did I wake you?”

The thief shrugs. “You sound like you’re having trouble, from all that grumbling I hear.”

“Oh.” A red flush creeps up to the apothecary’s cheeks and he presses a hand against the skin, either to cool it or cover his embarrassment. “You’re right. The dosage for this one herb is different in this book Ophilia gave me.”

The candlelight illuminates the dark shadows beneath the other man’s eyes. “Take a break,” Therion says, shuffling towards him. He sweeps his mantle off the floor and slips it over his head, tossing Alfyn’s tattered apothecary’s garb to him. “Come with me.”

“Wha—Therion?” comes Alfyn’s startled mumble, muffled when the cloth hits his face. “Hey—”

“I’m gonna leave you behind if you’re too slow, medicine man.”

“Shi—alright, give me a sec, will ya?”

Therion doesn’t even bother lighting a torch to guide their way. They slip out beneath the cover of the night, footfalls quiet against the dirt roads. Above them, the stars peer down as the waves lap against the shore, a gentle shushing against his ears. He clambers down the steps leading to the beach and turns only when he kicks both his shoes off his feet, bare toes wiggling in the cool sand with each step before they sting with ice cold from the water. He kicks his leg through a wave, huffing the tiniest of laughs.

“Well?” he starts, turning fully, but the rest of his question darts off at the tip of his tongue. For, colored almost blue between the starlight and ocean, Alfyn watches him with wide eyes. Clearing his throat, Therion crosses his arms. “Aren’t you coming in?”

Alfyn shakes himself before nodding. “Yeah. Hold—on,” he grits out, tearing his shoes from his feet. “Is it cold?”

“Freezing.”

“You’re goin’ t’ get sick, Therion!”

The thief rolls his eyes. “It’s fine. I’ve got a personal doctor.”

“Still—!”

He stoops down low and, cupping a handful of water, lobs it into Alfyn’s face.

Alfyn gapes at him. “You didn’t.”

“What’re you going to do about it,” he laughs, then, as an afterthought, adds, “Medicine man?”

Rolling up his sleeves, the apothecary barrels after him—and, for once, Therion allows himself to be caught. Alfyn wraps his arms around his waist and heaves him off his feet, spinning them around in the water. He laughs his contagious howling laughter and soon enough, the thief finds himself chuckling along as well. When they both begin to sway from dizziness, the taller man flops onto the sand, dragging Therion down with him.

“This is nice,” whispers Alfyn. “I needed this. Thank you, Therion.”

“Hn.”

“Hey, are _you_ alright?”

He freezes, breath catching, but doesn’t look at the man. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Alfyn’s voice sounds strained. “You’ve been awfully somber, and I… Therion, am I forcing you to come with me? I don’t want to be oversteppin’ boundaries, you’re always free to lea—”

“Hey.” The apothecary stops talking. Therion stares straight ahead, right into the vast nothingness of the sky, and pulls his courage together as Alfyn falls silent. His chest feels tight, stifled and anxious. “You’re not dragging me around or forcing me to do anything. I,” his voices cracks from the pressure and he coughs to clear it, face aflame, “I don’t know what to do with myself. I’ve never—I’ve never thought about settling down, or how to live any other way than I’m living now. I didn’t think…”

He hears the other man breath out, slowly, “Didn’t think what?”

“That our journeys would end.”

“Shucks, Therion,” Alfyn murmurs. He reaches for him again, and this time, Therion leans into the touch, albeit hesitantly. “The thing with journeys is they don’t end ‘til you want ‘em to.”

He shakes his head. “The others are all in their own homes now. And you—who knows how long before you’re gone too.”

“And what if I don’t _want _t’ be gone?”

The pressure in his chest threatens to release. Winded, Therion turns to Alfyn—only, the other man is already facing him, inches away. Any answer Therion had prepared is lost in his breath as they lock eyes and he feels, more so than ever, small in the world.

“It’s okay if you don’t want t’ settle anywhere yet,” the apothecary—_his_ apothecary—says, eyes a spectrum of serious and intense. “It’s okay if you don’t know what you want yet. But Therion,” his voice fades into a mere whisper, sending goosebumps to Therion’s neck and arms, “I’d really, really like to be there to see you find it. And I’d like to find myself with you.”

A breath. He tries not to stutter when he speaks, but Therion’s voice quivers anyway. “That sound suspiciously like a proposal,” he jokes, weakly.

The red blossoms on Alfyn’s neck and cheeks like an explosion. “Well, I,” he stumbles over his words, eyes wide. “Gods, don’t make me ask it again.”

The pressure in Therion’s chest transforms into something warm, something grander. He looks at Alfyn until he can look no more, the heat in his face overwhelming. Burying his face into his hands, he mumbles.

“Therion? I’m not asking _right now _right now, but someday, if you’ll have me—”

“You’re stuck with me then,” Therion blathers, voice muffled and distorted. “You’d better not regret it.”

Alfyn chokes on a laugh and Therion’s mind buzzes with every emotion at once. Here they are, the worn-down travelers, weary and lost and hurt but healing, belonging on this earth no less than the trees and the stars.

And maybe they are whole again. Or maybe there was nothing to be fixed. If Therion is the bare bones of a house, walls webbed with cracks and scars, Alfyn is the dust that settles between the crevices, the vines that snake and cling and climb, the weeds that stubbornly spring between the stones, nestled prettily, comfortingly, permanently. And together, they might have the structure of a home.

A beginning, of sorts.

But those thoughts are too far from now to find a proper place in his dreams, so Therion inhales the scents of spices and herbs, sings to himself amidst the crooning of waves and wind, and lulls himself to sleep this way, cradled by sand, stars, sea and strong arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Epilogue: Alfion wakes up on the beach to find that Ellen and Flynn buried them in sand and turned them into mermaids.
> 
> Thank you for reading! <3 you can also find me @nyoomiq on twitter :)


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